The Tribune from San Luis Obispo, California • 1

Newspaper of the Central Coast I'- 50C WWWT1IETRIBUNENEWSCOM LuiS OBISPO CoUNTT CALIFORNIA Growth and Local cable service: Telemundo do WEDNESDAY APRIL 4 2001 Report: Crew looks healthy Diplomats meet WITH FLIERS BEING held in China 71 million Marsh St Councilman calls Structure key to RETAIL SUCCESS vSan Luis Obispo By Silas Lyons The Tribune Culminating a debate that has brought die community conflicting visions for downtown into sharp contrast the City Council on Tuesday approved a large parking garage near the heart of the district The council voted 4-1 to accept a recommendation in favor of the garage from die Architectural Review Commission with Coundl-woman Christine Mulholland dissenting In a separate vote also with Mulholland opposed the council voted specifically to approve the project The $71 million 354-space -structure will be an expansion to AN Development the Marsh Street garage that already occupies a large chunk of die block across from the Downtown Centre After accounting for the parking that will be removed to build it die expansion will add 245 spots But the project is something much greater than numbers and slots for vehicles Councilman Ken Schwartz told fellow council members before casting his vote about the The parking forms a crucial component of the efforts to preserve prosperity in its core and develop new and attractive projects he said Mulholland was unswayed think this is too big a project and in the wrong she said Although the project had already been approved it was sent back for changes last summer after construction bids came in well over budget Those changes were approved by the Architectural Review Commission but a Cal Poly pro- Pkase see MARSH A4 make a bad situation worse on Los Osos Valley Road particularly where it crosses Highway 10L everything at stake here I do fed if important to go ahead witii this said Coundlwoman Jan Howell Marx just prior to the vote The lone dissenter was Coun-cilwoman Christine Mulholland who said the project's potential for snarling traffic is too great to ignore That neighborhood has taken a huge hit in recent years in terms of Mulholland said much as we need housing I'm really not prepared to stick it to that Please see HOMES A4 At meeting By Michael Ljedtke Associated Pusi SAN FRANCISCO As the California Public Utilities Commission tried to turn up the heat on tiie state's two largest power companies the regulators bore tiie brunt of the outrage over rising electricity rates during an animated hearing Tuesday In strident remarks delivered in crowd-plearing rap songs indignant poetry and pleas of poverty utility customers blasted the PUC for its March 27 decision approving electricity rates in By Martin Facxler Associated Press HAIKOU China allowed American diplomats to meet the crew of a US spy plane Tuesday for the first time since the plane landed on Chinese soil after a collision with a Chinese fighter jet but there was no sign when they would be allowed to return home China blamed the United States for the collision and demanded an apology President Jiang Zemin demanded that tiie United States stop surveillance flights off coast It was too early Wednesday morning for Chinese officials to react to a warning from President Bush The US leader said that any further delay in returning the 24 crew members or the plane itself frill of high-tech equipment that US officials fear China has now examined could possibly damage already unsettled China-US relations accident has the potential of undermining our hopes for a fruitful and productive relationship between our two Bush said in Washington keep that from happening our servicemen and women need to come government-run Xinhua news agency released pic- tunes of the damaged Navy EP3E at an air base on the southern island of Hainan The pictures showed the plane's leftmost pro pellor broken and tears on the underride of its left wing entire crew is in good said Army Brig Gen Neal Sealock the US' Embassy defense attache one of two diplo- Please see PLANE A4 TRIBUNE PHOTO BV DAVID MIDOLECAMP In ths Oceano beauty parlor where she works Eva Chavez can flip past two home shopping networks but only one Spanlstrianguage network on Charter Cable 130 more homes slated for city sports programs movies and women wearing next-hHiothing during primetime than Univision Viewer complaints have been streaming in to Charter Communications which carries the SpanisManguage programming and company officials said working to return Univision to local screens in a few weeks It turns out Charter responsible for the switch according to General Manager Ed Mer- Pkase tec TELEVISION A4 Popular network LIKELY TO RETURN says Charter By MarIa GarcIa TheTeisunb The living room in Esperanza home is dead silent Usually clamoring with the chatter of her favorite afternoon the Oceano home grew eerily quiet Monday when Munguia turned her television Lone NAYSAYER t- CITES TRAFFIC CONCERNS San Luis Obispo By Silas Lyons The Tribune With one eye on traffic and one on San Luis painfully tight housing market the city council voted 4-1 Tuesday to approve a 130home subdivision on Los 0 sos Valley Road Their decision came despite concern that the development will ASSOCIATED PRESS Mary Bull of Sin Francisco handcuffed harsstf to her POLE bid at yesterday's matting on Her favorite Spanish-lan-guage soap opera Te Amare which translates to Will Always Love come on at its usual 1 pm time Munguia had joined hundreds of other Vanish-language cable viewers in San Luis Obispo and northern Santa Barbara counties who got a rude surprise this week Beginning Sunday they found out that the top-rated Spanish-language network in the country Univision Television Network had been replaced by second-best Telemundo Telemundo features more expense are cronies for big sneered Oakland resident JoelTena stench of unspoken arrogance disgusts us said San Francisco resident David Ah as he read from an acerbic poem The backlash aimed at the PUC came on the same day that the regulators ended months of delay and agreed to investigate PUC faces backlash to Committee also approves new CONSERVATION INCENTIVES World watchers The Navy's EP-3 Aries II spy plane has been described as a giant electronic vacuum cleaner in the sky sucking up sensitive information for use by Ui commanders The plane involved in Sunday's incident belonged to the squadron nicknamed Watchers' The spy plane's mission is to gather electronic intelligence and monitor military activities Anna detection rang 1 4 i-1 CHINA TA'ViXN A "'1 1ZhinHipa HonqKcnq SwyiATf B-O (KTtlTA! feXt i -4' 1WTWN ii4ungshui i Appm It colfokyi SniOiCiinaSN iVSTN-M 0 Mtttanr itciitiM 1 Mm 4r 4 JUrMtrnpLtatol SOURCES uNEMErWMiWCl MCW G1OM1 TWO WSCSS4VY Afft-QC ASSOC 'C rate hikes for signs of financial misconduct at the parent companies of SoCal Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric The inquiry will focus on whether the holding companies Corp Edison International and Sempra Energy Corp milked the nearly bankrupt utilities for cash and hoarded profits from their unregulated businesses that should have been used to help bail out tiie utilities Forced to pay more for electricity on the wholesale market than they could charge their cus- IVse see ENERGY A4 creases of more than 40 percent for customers of Pacific Gas and Electric Co and Southern California Edison Co While the details differed during 90 minutes of venting the gist of the statements shared a common theme Virtually everyone portrayed the state's energy watchdogs as the lapdogs of both the utilities and the power generators reaping huge profits at Cal Inside today There were more headaches on Wall Street as the Nasdaq tumbled more than 100 points Business D1 Weather Partly sunny breezy and cool today Chance shower at the coast highs 56-64 lows 37-47 In the North County highs 57-61 lows 32-36 Complete forecast C6 of a Calendar C5 Obituaries B2 TV Listings C6.